


Brave as Traffic

by sevenfists



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Gen, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-15
Updated: 2008-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-04 03:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfists/pseuds/sevenfists
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You didn't get very far before you gave up and went home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brave as Traffic

**Author's Note:**

> Beta thanks to mcee.

You didn't get very far before you gave up and went home.

It was the first time you ran away. You were twelve. You had a backpack and twenty bucks in your pocket, and a few battered paperbacks, and a subway map of New York City. You made it all the way to the bus station before you realized you didn't have enough money for a ticket—not to anywhere past the next town over, not even to Salt Lake City or Phoenix, much less all the way across the country. You turned around and walked back to your house. It was four miles, but your dad still wasn't there by the time you got back, and you fixed dinner for yourself and he never had any idea what happened, didn't know how close he came to losing you for good.

That was just the first time. When you tell people about it, years later, it takes form as a comedy, something you did once when you were a dumb kid. "It was so stupid," you say, laughing a little, brushing your hair out of your face. "I had this stupid fucking red backpack that I'd had since like, fourth grade, and I totally thought I was going to make it to New York and be a famous rock star or something." And the person you're telling the story to, whoever it is, laughs too and maybe says something like, "That's almost worse than the time I tried to run away to my grandma's house." It turns into an anecdote, recycled so many times that it doesn't feel real anymore.

The memory's still real, though, the version of the story that you keep inside your head and don't tell to anyone, not even Keltie, lying close together in your bunk late at night. You can't talk about it because it still hurts you to think about how hopeful you were. You really believed that you were going to do it: that you would get on that bus and leave and never look back.

The first eighteen years of your life taught you not to hope for things. It was a good lesson for you at the time, and one that you're still trying to unlearn.

***

You took Spencer with you the second time. You're not sure what year that was—you think you were fourteen, but it was September, so maybe you were fifteen by then. Your dad was in the hospital again, and you'd been going over there every afternoon after school, every day for a week and a half, and one day you decided you didn't want to go. You had a revelation halfway through your chemistry lab: rehab never worked, he always swore he would change and he never did, and you were tired of waiting for him to get his act together and of the way he could never look you in the face when he lied.

You were tired. You tried that on for size. It felt right. You were fed up. You called Spencer after school and said, "I'm running away. Want to come?"

"Of course," Spencer said, like it was stupid for you to even ask.

You were better prepared that time. You and Spencer pooled your cash and made a stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in Spencer's kitchen, wrapped them in fold-over sandwich bags and tucked them in your backpacks. "It's like in Calvin and Hobbes," Spencer said, and you just nodded, because Spencer was still young enough that he thought in terms of make-believe. You weren't going to be the one to disillusion him.

You made it all the way to the Strip before a nosy cop stopped you and asked where you were going. You weren't a good liar back then, gangly and pimply-faced, and you mumbled something about meeting your older brother near one of the casinos. "Which casino?" the cop asked, and you couldn't produce a name fast enough, and Spencer sighed heavily and you knew you were busted. The cop called Spencer's mom and she was there within fifteen minutes, pulling her green Volvo up to the curb.

"I don't know what you boys were thinking, I was worried sick," she scolded, herding you into the car, and all you could think about was how nice it was to have somebody care that you had left.

You mention it to Spencer once, in a hey-remember-that sort of way, off-hand. You've both just woken from a nap in the back lounge. He squints at you and rubs his eyes, yawning. "Wasn't your dad in the hospital then?" he asks.

"Yeah," you say, and you want to say something else but can't form the words, and then after a moment you can't even remember what it is you wanted to say.

"We should have tried harder," Spencer says, "I bet we could have at least made it out of the state."

***

You've got some daddy issues. You'll be the first one to admit it. It always made Jac crazy, she wanted it to be some sort of twisted Oedipal thing. "That's not Oedipal," you said, "technically," and she rolled her eyes and said, "You know what I mean, dick." Jac wasn't a nice person, but neither were you, back then. You maybe still aren't. That's why you got along so well with her: you were cruel to each other, in the way that people are when they were never taught to distinguish cruelty from love. It was how you were affectionate: you broke each other's hearts. You were both young and fucked-up and she did too many drugs and you read too many pretentious books and the whole thing was a disaster.

You think now that Jac only wanted to fix you so that you'd return the favor. That sort of co-dependency never works, and you're glad that things ended when they did, before anything irrevocable could happen. Like love.

It isn't Oedipal. You never wanted to fuck your father, but you wanted to kill him plenty of times, the weeks he forgot to buy actual food and you lived off instant ramen from 7-11, the day he threw a beer bottle at you and it shattered against your shoulder. You still have that scar. You hated him when he was alive, and you hated him for dying, and you hate him now for weaseling out of ever having to answer to you. You've got things you could say: "How could you," or "I hope you regretted it," or, worse, "I forgive you."

You went to a shrink for a while, after your dad died. Spencer's the only one who knows about it. You went to three sessions and sat in an armchair and talked about how you didn't know how to trust anyone and how you were always looking for a way out. The shrink nodded and listened and made notes to herself, and it was probably supposed to make you feel better, talking about it, but instead it just made you feel worse. You stopped going.

From time to time you think about giving it another try, but you've never been good at talking about things.

***

The third time is hard to think about. He hit you, you threatened to call the cops, you spent a week sleeping in an alley, tucked between a dumpster and a brick wall. You aren't sure where Spencer was during all of this—it was summer, so he was probably out of town on vacation. That must have been why you didn't call him.

You remember the bruise you had after that, yellow and green on the side of your face for weeks. He didn't hit you much; that was only the second or third time, maybe. He wasn't a violent person—only when you made him angry on purpose, said the things you knew would make him lash out. You wanted the sob story. _My father hits me_ sounded more dramatic than _My father looks at old photographs and cries_. You wanted to suffer for your art. You didn't know any better. You were just a kid.

When you went home, finally, he was waiting for you, sober and red-eyed, and he cried when he hugged you and said, "Oh God, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so glad you're safe," but that didn't make a good story either. When you talk about him, the rare times when you do, you leave out the crying and the fucked-up way he loved you, enough to make you love him in return but not enough to stop drinking.

Later, after Brendon's parents kicked him out, you stopped running away and started staying at his apartment whenever your dad went on a bender. Your dad was used to years of sleepovers with Spencer; it was easy to say, "I'll be back tomorrow," and take your things and leave and not go back for four days. Brendon didn't mind as long as you kept the cabinets stocked with cereal.

That part turns into an anecdote: not the part about your dad, but the other stuff. Brendon likes to talk about how you were a huge mooch and ate all of his food and even fucked a girl on his bed, once, when he was working late. It always ends with: "And he never even paid rent!" You sigh, long-suffering, and say, "I totally paid half your rent," and Brendon says, "Yeah, _once_," and the person who's listening to the story, whoever it is, laughs and maybe makes a joke about Brendon taking it out in trade, and you say, "What's that supposed to mean?" and Brendon leers and gropes you, and everything's fine.

***

The fourth time was after you fired Brent and before you hired Jon. Nobody noticed. You were only gone for four hours, so they probably thought you had just gone for a walk, but you left the bus with every intention of getting the hell out of whatever state you were in and never looking back. You were rich by then, or at least had enough money to never have to think about it, and you took a taxi to the nearest airport and bought a ticket to Singapore and got all the way through security before you started to think about what you were doing.

You locked yourself in a bathroom stall for fifteen minutes and folded toilet paper into tiny, tiny squares that you flushed one at a time, and then you picked up your suitcase and left the airport and got in a different taxi and were back on the bus before anyone noticed you were gone.

"What's with the suitcase?" Spencer asked, later, when he saw it sitting on your bunk.

"Oh, I was just. Reorganizing," you said, and Spencer gave you a weird look but didn't push it.

You tell Keltie about it after you've been dating for six months. "I'm not even sure why I decided to go," you say. "It was so stupid. I wasn't thinking, I just—I had to get out of there. Shit, Spencer would have _killed_ me."

"I'm glad you didn't go to Singapore," Keltie says.

You kiss her temple. "Me too," you say, and most days it's true.

***

You started drinking because of Jon. It's embarrassing, but you thought he was really cool, and you wanted him to like you—even though he gave every indication of liking you just fine, you wanted him to like you _more_. He was getting ready to go out one night when you leaned in the doorway of the bus's cramped bathroom and said, "Want some company?"

He was startled. He blinked at you a few times and didn't answer right away. "Do you—I'm going out to get drunk, dude, you know that, right?"

"Yeah," you said, and shrugged. "It's not a big deal. I just thought—"

"It's fine," he said, "great. Of course you can come. Go put on your shoes."

You had two Long Island iced teas that night, sitting at the bar with Jon and Tom, and it was fine, you got a little buzzed but that was all, nothing like Brendon's early experiments, when he would come stumbling back to the bus and puke into a trash can. You felt warm and happy there, listening to Jon talk about photography, and you were a little light-headed, but it wasn't—you were fine. You were in control of yourself the whole time. It didn't mean you were like your dad.

That was why you kept doing it: to prove to yourself that you weren't like him, that you could handle it, you could have a drink every now and then without going overboard. You didn't even like it at first. You do now, but you still keep it to a drink or two in a night, and Spencer's stopped giving you worried looks every time he sees you with a glass in your hand, and sometimes you get through an entire beer without thinking of your father at all.

***

The fifth time was after he died: you ran away from Spencer after the funeral, just took off down the street in your new suit and your shiny shoes, and Spencer hollered after you but you didn't look back. It was a hot day, the middle of July, but beautiful, the sky clear, a hawk riding the thermals overhead, and the feeling you had wasn't quite joy but it was close enough.

You walked around the city all day and didn't go back to Spencer's house until after they'd all finished dinner and Spencer's mom was busy washing up. "Where were you," Spencer said, turning you around like he was checking for damage.

"Just walking," you said. "It was a beautiful day, did you know that?"

"Ryan," he said, and there was nothing else to say after that.

***

The bus is driving overnight through Texas and New Mexico and you can't sleep. Everyone else is breathing peacefully in the bunks, or snoring, in Brendon's case, but you're still up, pacing the lounge in sweaty silence. You're not sure why you can't sleep. Insomnia is not your forte; even at the worst of times, you manage to get at least six hours, but you lay in bed for ages and couldn't drift off. It was too hot, and Keltie was kicking you in her sleep, and now you're up at 3:30 in the morning and you've got an interview in five hours and everything sucks.

You flop down on the couch and turn on the TV, volume on mute. It's set to the TV Guide channel, and the time and date are scrolling at the top of the screen, and then you know why you can't sleep: it's been two years since your dad died, and your body remembers anniversaries even when the rest of you forgets.

You give up on the idea of sleep and brew a pot of coffee. You're going to be up for the rest of the night anyway; you might as well make it easier for yourself. There's a full moon tonight, and you stand at the window, drinking your coffee and watching the desert landscape roll past. From time to time you pass another car, its headlights wheeling by you in the dark.

There's a noise behind you and you turn to see Spencer standing in the doorway to the bunks, knuckling his eyes. You say, "What's up?"

"Thought I heard something," Spencer mumbles. "Why're you awake?"

You shrug. "Couldn't sleep."

"Oh," Spencer says. He sits down on the sofa. "You know, it's—"

"I know what day it is," you say, and maybe that's not what Spencer meant but it's all you can think about. You take another sip of coffee and sit down beside him. You lean your head against his shoulder. He's warm, and he smells like the fancy organic laundry detergent Haley gave him.

He puts an arm around you and lets you sit there quietly, not prying, and that's something you both love and hate about Spencer, that he's been your friend long enough to know when to keep his mouth shut and let you simmer until you're bubbling over, which is a sloppy metaphor but you're crying now and there's no elegant turn of phrase to describe your gummy eyes and the way the tears make your face feel sticky.

"I miss him," you say, "I hated him and I miss him and now he won't—I can't ever—"

"I know," Spencer says, rubbing your back in wide circles. You sit there with him through sunrise and after, until Keltie wakes up and makes more coffee and kisses you and scrambles an entire carton of eggs. After that you're okay.


End file.
